About 100 members of the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service picketed yesterday in front of the White House, a building they are charged with protecting.

The officers marched for better pay and benefits for the 900-member force in what their union president called their first demonstration since the creation of the department in 1970.

Picketers, many wearing masks to protect their identities, walked with family members for about three hours in near-freezing temperatures with signs reading, "The president can sleep because the U.D. doesn't," and "Be fair to my daddy."

Peter England, president of the Uniformed Division Officer Association, said, "We are out here picketing because we need a pay raise. We haven't seen anything but cost-of-living increases in 10 years."

England said the union was proposing a 25 percent pay increase to put its officers' salaries ahead of those in other police departments in the region. He said the agency had put in for a 12 percent increase for the division as part of a pay package working its way through appropriate agencies.

"Right now Metropolitan Police are the highest paid in the region," he said. "We deserve to be paid more than them because of our duties."

He said Secret Service officers are charged with protecting the "environment" around the president and vice president as well as the embassies in Washington.

England said their pay scale, with a starting yearly salary of $19,952, ties them with the U.S. Park Police for No. 10 in comparative salaries for police departments in the area. "Our pay is so low that our department has trouble recruiting officers and trouble keeping them," he said.

Agent Rich Adams, a spokesman for the Secret Service, disputed England's contention that the divison is losing officers at a significant rate. He said 79 officers were "separated" from the agency last year compared with 166 in 1971.

Adams said the Uniformed Division "seems to forget that they, like us, are federal employes. We are all in the same boat. None of us have had a pay increase since 1980."

Adams said the proposed 12 percent increase would put the division salary at the top for the area.

England contended that this position would be eroded by upcoming contract negotiations in other departments.

As England was interviewed by a dozen members of the media, Ralph Willis, his wife Hysum and their three small children walked with the other picketers.

"This is a sad occasion," said Ralph Willis, a 15-year employe of the division. "We have no choice but come out here in the public."